Executive of Australian Football Compelled to Resign, Sparking Debate on Religious Freedom

A top executive in Australian football was recently forced to resign, sparking discussions about religious freedom in the workplace.

On September 27, former banker Andrew Thorburn took over as CEO of the Essendon Football Club. A little over a day later, his ties to a conservative Melbourne church led to his resignation from the prestigious “footy” club.

Thorburn, in a short public speech, summed up the situation as follows: “My personal Christian religion is neither accepted or permitted in the public square.”

The president of the Australian football club issued a statement strongly disputing this characterization, saying, “this is not about vilifying anyone for their personal religious beliefs, but about a clear conflict of interest with an organization whose views do not align at all with our values as a safe, inclusive, diverse, and welcoming club.”

Thorburn is the board chair for City on a Hill, an evangelical Anglican church that began in Melbourne in 2007. There are presently eight locations, including five in the Melbourne area. Guy Mason, the church’s founding pastor, was a member of the Acts 29 network. Both abortion and homosexuality were topics of Mason’s sermons in 2013; the latter included a comparison of the amount of abortions performed to the Holocaust.

When audio recordings of the earlier sermons leaked online following Thorburn’s appointment, it caused a controversy.

Perhaps the most extreme example of a person being driven out of a prominent job because of their involvement with conservative Christianity is seen in Thorburn’s brief tenure and dramatic departure. No one has accused him of improper behavior, making his departure all the more surprising. There is no evidence that Thorburn even believes the objectionable ideas that the Essendon board deemed unacceptable.

Even though these are not opinions that Andrew Thorburn has voiced personally, the Board made it plain that he could not continue to serve as the club’s chief executive, as stated by president Dave Barham.

The resignation has reignited discussion about religious freedom in Australia. Legal experts point out that under Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Act of 2010, no one may be discriminated against on the basis of their religious beliefs or practices. Doesn’t that make Thorburn safe?

Legal expert and partner at Sydney’s Clyde & Co., Kiri Jervis, posed the question, “The difficulty we have here is he occupies the position in the church, and the church maintains those ideas, therefore does that make the two incompatible in a workplace?” What does it mean?

A Global Community Learning, teaching, and mentoring are all encouraged on Sundays.
Christian professor at Newcastle University’s Law School Neil Foster is certain the club broke the law. Thorburn submitted a resignation letter, however he was really terminated from his position.

He concluded that “direct prejudice” was most likely at play in this situation. It is illegal to discriminate against an employee on the basis of their religion unless the employer can prove that the discrimination was necessary “because of the intrinsic needs of the specific job involved.”

Foster said that he was at a loss to explain how a church official’s stance on moral problems like homosexuality and abortion, which he described as being held by “Christians, Muslims, Jews, and many other religious followers for a long time,” could possibly have any bearing on Australian soccer.

Considering the moral stances of a football club’s upper management, he wondered.

Some devout Bombers supporters from Essendon were shocked and upset by the decision. An Essendon fan and Melbourne’s Catholic Archbishop, Peter Comensoli, expressed his “appalled” by the news and said he would no longer cheer for the team.

According to Comensoli, “it is rather a peculiar world we appear to have reached,” in which individuals are deemed unable to govern due to their Christian convictions.

The Anglican Church’s reaction was less vocal. Despite being in Australia at the moment, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has remained silent on the matter, noting simply that secular nations have not yet found a solution to the problem of religious and moral diversity.

The Archbishop of Melbourne, an Anglican denomination, Philip Freier, expressed sadness that Thorburn’s brief tenure caused “so much anxiety for so many people.” It would be “unfortunate if persons of religion are excluded from participation in professional and public life on grounds of personal religious conviction,” he said.

Anglican bishop of Tasmania Richard Condie remarked that although he found Thorburn’s viewpoint to be “untenable,” Essendon should have allowed his membership in a conservative church.

He made this observation on the Religion and Ethics show on the Australia Broadcasting Corporation: “It appears people whose greatest virtue is their stated tolerance have little qualms about being intolerant of others.”

Thorburn was the head of the Bank of New Zealand for a decade before taking a 30-hour-a-week job at Essendon. After that, in 2014, he relocated to Australia to lead the National Australia Bank. During his time at Australia Bank, the institution collaborated with the AFL to sponsor the first-ever Challenge Pride match, which served as a platform for advancing LGBT equality in Australia’s most popular sporting competition.

“I love all people and have always encouraged and lived an inclusive, varied, courteous, and supportive workplace,” said Thorburn, who has followed the Essendon club since he was a youngster. Within hours of my appointment being revealed, community leaders and the media had already spoken out against me, despite my own track record as a leader. They made it quite apparent that my Christian beliefs and church attendance were not welcome.

Thorburn claims that he was promised continued employment at the club in exchange for his resignation from the church. He concluded that he could not accept the absolute need.

“I was being asked to make concessions that went against everything I believed in,” he said. “It is important that people have the freedom to have diverse opinions on important personal and moral issues, and that they be able to coexist and work together civilly and respectfully despite these differences.”

Early in October, Thorburn issued a second statement in which he acknowledged the hundreds of individuals who had come out to him in support and stated he had heard from numerous people who “voiced real anxiety” about religious prejudice.

He argued that religious people should be included in discussions about diversity and tolerance.

The head of Australian/Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University, Stan Grant, disagrees, arguing that “inclusion is always selective” and that “if Thorburn was chairman of a social club that prohibited women or black people, he would have been forced to make the same option.”

According to Grant, shifting social norms will have a negative impact on a number of professions. That’s the cost of making progress in society. Quickly summing things up, he said, “It’s becoming harder to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

This is something that Thorburn would probably agree with.